The World Bank is pulling the plug on Francisco’s bakery.
I live in Managua, Nicaragua. I own a bakery which I started 15 years ago. The bakery is in a poor neighbourhood I have always tried to employ local young men who have families to support. At the start I had four workers and now I have 30. The business has grown thanks to a good market and lots of hard work.
However, in the last 12 months there have been electricity cuts, often up to 12 hours a day. We get no notice of the cuts and it’s doing terrible damage to my business.
Nicaragua is not a rich country. Unicef says that one in every three children suffers from malnutrition. As part of our access to loans and to much-needed debt relief the World Bank insisted that the electricity supply was privatised. The government had no choice but to agree. Read more
Privatisation has been a disaster for me. As well as the power cuts, my bills have been going up. Before privatisation things were not perfect but we didn’t have all these blackouts and bills were much lower.
The future
Without electricity I cannot make bread so it has been very difficult to survive the power cuts. In just one month I lost 26,000 córdobas ($702/€1043) and each month the losses continue.
I have somehow managed to keep paying my workers and to keep supplying the university, jail and hospital. But I fear for the future if this crisis continues. I will be forced to lay off workers at a time when unemployment is so high.
Message to the Bank
The World Bank didn’t think about the impact of privatisation on the poorest people or on small businessmen like me. We were promised lots of investment from big foreign companies, more electricity for Nicaraguans and a cheaper and better service. But we have seen none of this. We just keep paying more.
If I could speak directly to the World Bank I would tell them that their money is increasing poverty in my community. I would ask them not to insist on privatisation as a condition for lending us money we desperately need.
Please act now
Last year the UK government withheld £50 million of funding from the World Bank. This made the Bank sit up and take notice.
However, little has changed, and the Bank is still making, such as privatisation, a condition of giving money to poor countries.
Please, if you agree with me and think that the World Bank should stop attaching all harmful economic conditions to loans, aid and debt relief, then send my story to the UK government, urging it to take immediate action.
Thank you
Francisco Carvajal